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http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pe2023Sz...
a lot of the names are incomplete, for example.
is the raw data available anywhere?
Agreed. But heads won't roll unless we make it happen. We must use this defeat as a catalyst for better goal setting, planning, organization, and funding of gay civil rights causes. And while I think earlier suggestions of boycotting businesses that supported Prop 8 are relevant, I suggest we also redouble our efforts to figure out if any existing gay groups are worthy of preserving and supporting. If so, then we should put our full weight behind them - while at the same time clearly outlining what we expect them to achieve and how we expect them to do so. If not, then we should spend considerable time and effort figuring out what kind of organization we need that will honestly work to achieve our goals. We're losing because we're too disjointed, and as John said, too "PC" for our own good.
Just remember what Obama has been saying: "Yes We Can". We just have to figure out the best way "how" "we can".
Also I will never have to serve on a Jury ever again, since the good god fearing Mormons and Catholics have clearly said the courts don't matter here. Since they get to decide what rights I have , I now get to pick what responsiblilties I have.
So the next Jury summons I get I am going to send it back with "Sorry not a full citizen so can't help you ..."
On another note, the arguement could be made that a lot of the GOTV efforts by the gay community was out of fear of McCain taking office, effectively self interest. I have no problem with that, in fact I think it's a smart thing to do, but to turn around and chastize black people for somehow showing self-interest as opposed to doing what you wanted them to do (out of self interest) is just a little bit hypocritical.
Finally, throwing the Republican label on one of the most single reliably Democratic voting blocks EVER is just a little bit reactionary.
Please join me, and let's let them know what hate feels like.
And something tells the Mormon church won't be quite so willing to spread their money around to help keep California taxes from rising to pay for the inevitable legal actions that will definitely arise from this vile legislation.
John, as a straight white boy here in Texas, there's no way I can fully understand the anger and frustration at being told you're a second class citizen, worthy of all the social obligations-taxes-but none of the social rights-marriage-but I do know that your only real option is to keep fighting and scrapping like Hell, because to give up in despair is exactly what those repulsive homophobes want more than anything else.
Those pro Prop 8 fucktards are celebrating today, they won't be gloating for long, not when their hatred gets rightfully-blamed when boycotts start costing California real, and badly-needed revenue.
This is what happens when you run a campaign without stating the true issue. We danced around the topic for months when we should have been asking people to "save OUR marriages." We never put a human face on the tragedy that just happened.
I was out on the street campaigning yesterday from 6:30AM to 7PM -- and we had a lot of supporters in the Bay Area. But the fact that LA did not go our way killed us.
I second that!
The original No On 8 management team - you know, the guys who got fired three weeks ago - was headed by a Log Cabin Republican.
Kind of tells you all you need to know, doesn't it?
Time for civil disobedience. Mormons not welcome.
In fact, didn't Obama announce that he was opposed to gay marriage when he first entered the campagin? Have we been had for fools by another Clintonism? Obama/Clinton . . . that's not much of a victory outside the limousine liberal set.
If anything, I don't think Obama threw anyone under a bus, he's been clear since the beginning on his views of gay marriage and civil unions.
Also, boycott Utah.
In any event, as horrid as this is, two things:
1) Suit will be filed against Prop 8 as unconstitutional. the arguments are clever (lawyer here) and . . . who knows.
2) The issue will come up again in the next 2-10 years. Is it a bitch to wait? Of course. But in time, as long as we keep screaming, it will change back to allowing gays to marry. Hell, I also remember the white/black only water fountains when I was a kid. So I know better than most how much progress can be made in time.
Stay angry, always fight, and never give up.
P. S. I agree with the poster on the "no mormon's welcome sign" Gonna do the same thing.
The Mormons have disavowed these groups but continue to protect them.
You are right to be indignant but you shouldn't be too surprised. California has a very low threshold for passing Constitutional amendments ( a bare majority is required ).
So, its dumbfoundingly easy to amend the California constitution.
Apparently, all it takes is an unholy alliance between Mormons and Catholics and Baptists.
-S
Prop 8 is unconstitutional.
http://www.sos.ca.gov/archives/level3_const1849...
But you'd think the pro-8 people would have done their homework on this before spending all that time and money.
I'm no expert, but this is my general sense.
Here in California, the bar is set very low.
-S
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diar...
Democractic bigotry: Tears of joy from millions of blacks who, at the same time, denied civil rights to the GLTB community - ignorance and religious insanity are diseases on the social welfare of society.
Outlaws divorce in the State of California
Makes Adultery a Captial Offense in the State of California
Any woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock must wear the Scarlet Letter A.
Seems only right.. after all we want to defend marriage don't we?
How about those straight couples living together in "Sin!", how about other events.
There has to be some unk-intended consequences to this law. FIND THEM. IMPLEMENT THEM !
There's about 10 million votes there all together. 10% of that is 1 million. 70% of that, 700,000. 50% of that is 500,000.
The difference is 400,000 votes. 200,000 the other direction would have made a virtual tie.
Was Martin Luther King driving that bus we just got thrown under?
Churches must have backed the printing of "Yes on 2" signs because most of the churches here had hundreds of yard signs placed all around them all over the place.
There was literally NO opposition to this measure in the state of FL that I could see....ANYWHERE....it was basically ignored.
And, it's safe to say that not every white who voted yes is a Mormon. For all we know, there could have been some confusion in the way the question was posed in the exit polls.
I'd say that the hefty turnout was clearly from whites! I'd say you stand corrected on this one. I'd also hate to think it's that easy for you to point the finger at the African American community.
I speak Spanish. I contacted the GL center in LA. I asked about their phone bank to SPANISH speaking voters. They gave me 2 names of people who were manning their phone banks: one for Spanish speaking and another name for someone near where I lilve/work
Well I emailed both of these people many times, and I NEVER got a response.
I wrote to Lorri Jean and she told me that their web site had be hacked but that I would be hearing from someone in the next day about their volunteer phone banks. I never heard from them again even after sending ANOTHER email
And I emailed again the phone bank "leaders" asking them where I should go to help with phone calls. I never received a response.
So I have NO IDEA who organized the phone banks, but they were a DISASTER as far as I am concerned. I wanted to help so much, but how if now one told me where to go.
Unbelievable!
The gay movement's success is due to ordinary gay people living openly and harmoniously among our families and neighbors for more than 20 years.
Gay studies, more or less impossible prior to the 1970s, have found, contrary to popular opinion, "homosexual behavior a widespread phenomenon throughout the animal world...homosexual behavior is so well established among mammals,especially those of the higher orders, that it would be odd if homosexual behavior did not play a significant role in human sexuality."
Homosexual behavior and even social institutions have been found in ALL non western human societies..."Pagan", in Catholic church history, is more often than not a euphemism for homosexual.
Don't deprive yourself because Mormons are bigoted *ssholes
This Prop. passed because the No on 8 people dropped the ball until it was too late. Half the yes voters thought they were protecting little kids from gay boogeymen invading their classrooms. If you want to boycott something, boycott Utah. I think we should set up protests outside every LDS church, calling them out on their bigotry.
I agree with Am.Karol below - how in the hell can a church be tax exempt and then pump $20 million into a politcal campaign?
If a mormom shows up at my front door I will not hesitate to tell them to get their homophobic asses off my property.
Basically, from my semi-inside viewpoint, it was the people who ran No on 8 early on and were shown the door a few weeks ago who should be tarred and feathered. They thought they had it in the bag based on early polling.
Patrick Guerrero stepped in at the last minute and really whipped the place into shape- got the fund raising going to the tune of a million a day, got the celeb endorsements happening, but it was just too late. I think with more time he could have pulled it off.
His head should remain where it is, I think. Even if he was wtih the Log Cabinettes. Just an opinion.
I do believe we have to take the gloves off with these religious institutions, though. They are the enemy. What more proof do we need? And yet without fail, anytime one mounts an attack, there are a flurry of what I call "But I know some nice Mormons" posts which totally defang any attempt to play hardball.
They ( the Mormons, the Fundies, and, yes, the Catholics) are our enemies. No matter how many nice ones we know. As institutions, they are the ENEMY. We need to start acting like it.
It wasn't until the last week that the Samuel L. Jackson ad about how it was outright bigotry to pass that restrictive law was aired. Let's face it, the anti 8 crowd was just too timid and too squeamish about actually talking about gay rights. While the pro 8 people used every trick in the book to make it about everything BUT their bigotry.
Anti 8 ran a feeble John McCain like campaign. Don't worry though, i'm sure the courts will intervene again.
Gay marriage is now guaranteed as a basic civil right in their constitution.... and the same will likely be the outcome of this fight in Cali... The lawsuits have already started... the Prop will likely be overturned and declared unconstitutional -- BECAUSE of it's very discriminatory nature, with very visible immediate results....
To truly amend current language in the constitution, you need a 2/3 vote -- and that would never happen on this issue.
Okay, this goes against my belief that the government should stay out of our marriages. Still, I think that we should teach the mormons a thing or two about glass houses.
And willing to lie outright, which I think is against Baby Jesus or something, right?
Organized religion is nothing but a game of lies and control of groups of people.
Time to take away the tax-exempt status of all religious organizations.
But, on the heels of a most historic presidential election, I am filled with the hope generated by our new president. We only lost this one, the fight MUST continue and preparations must begin TODAY.
I'm a hetero but this proposition meant a lot to me because discrimination is now written into our state constitution, it simply cannot be allowed to stand and we simply can't stop fighting to change this ugly splotch on our Constitution.
It might help next time to get a bunch of NO on Discrimination signs printed up to outnumber the yes on 8 signs I saw all over the place. Not one single No on 8, but lots of Yes signs. It looked like there was no opposition. This isn't just about gay marriage, it's about discrimination, and if it's framed that way next time, we might be able attract more support.
As for Obama, he stated some time ago that he was not in favor of same-sex marriage though he was open to persuasion. He is, however, behind civil unions. He's quite conservative socially and we shouldn't forget that. He's far from being a liberal.
Any church who participated needs to have their tax exempt status pulled. PERIOD.
If I'm not married anymore, then the State of California has robbed me of $170. I want it back. I wonder what the total would add up to if we ALL asked for it back?
The USA cannot have second class citizens, and all of these gay marriage bans in CA, FL and other states will eventually become a thing of the past.
that's the HUGE grey area that prop 8 created, a two-tiered system.
some of us are married, some aren't.
the pro-prop8 people are now working to dissolve all the existing marriages before the fight against the amendment can use them as a legal basis for a fight.
but we're still married for now.
Yesterday California made history again. It became the first state to put perfectly legal marriages to a popular vote. As a result those marriages - approximately 20,000 in number - have been nullified, and the right for gay couples to marry has been revoked. Some of the backers of the anti-gay ballot measure now vow to go after domestic partnerships in an effort to remove any and all legal protections from gay couples.
My joy at last night's historic triumph over racial bigotry is tempered by the knowledge that many of those who voted for Barack Obama also voted to overturn my marriage because I am gay. One expects that the victims of prejudice would be the first to recognize it when it is directed at someone else, but clearly that is not the case. That is a great shame.
For those who sought to roll back the tide of change, the battle has been won. But I assure you, the war is not over. Case in point, the first lawsuit against this unjust constitutional amendment is being filed today in court by the very couple who won us the right to marry earlier this year. If the people will not support our basic rights, we will turn again to the courts for justice.
there are now married gays, and gays that can't get married.
how fubar is that?
"According to Joan Hollinger, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, "Constitutional scholars agree that the amendment cannot be effective retroactively."[28] The principal reason the amendment cannot be effective retroactively is the provision of the United States Constitution that prohibits the states from enacting laws which impair the obligation of contracts in Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution.[citation needed] The Ex Post Facto clause of the Constitution generally has been construed to prohibit the enactment of statutes which impose criminal penalties on conduct not previously defined as criminal, or which increase the penalties for act after the act has been committed."
But there are now three classes of citizens in California:
1. Straight couples
2. Gay couples who are legally married
3. Gay couples who can't get married.
A change is gonna come...
What is their position on the 4th commandment?
Keeping holy the sabbath, means that you should NOT break this commandment .
Mormons, go shut down the NFL, MLB.& NASCAR unless they quit having events on the sabbath.
Stick to your principles (I got that form Joe the plumber). No work on the sabbath.
After all, God actually wrote that down for you, it's the fourth commandment.
If your true purpose is save people, then why not go after a people breaking an actual commandment on a national level?
Remember those dumb ads showing a bride stumbling towards the altar, or the sappy forgettable ads that didn't even mention gay marriage or discrimination? They blew it.
I'm a straight guy in L.A., a nobody, and even I know what the No campaign should have done. Number one, flood the black community with ads explaining that Obama opposes Prop. 8. Twist Obama's elbow using Hollywood connections to get him to cut a No on 8 ad -- but even if he didn't, at least make it known that he opposes it.
Second, they should have had that Dianne Feinstein ad running a month ago. Instead they pulled it out in the final week, after millions of absentee voters had already voted. And while No supposedly raised as much money as the Yes campaign, I didn't see it. Every time I rode in my car, I heard a hard-hitting Yes on 8 ad. Every time I watched TV, I saw one of their ads. Driving to Riverside, I saw Yes on 8 Mormons waving signs and getting cards to honk.
The gay community simply got outplayed. They had the stronger hand but did not take advantage until it was too late.
"California's vote on Proposition 8 to deny marriage to gays is
winning 52.1% to 47.9%. Proposition 2, which protects farm animals, is winning 63.3% to 36.7%.
I guess the good Christians consider us lower than animals when it comes to protection of rights."
a sad reflection on the people of California... you got punked by the christian right bigots.
five years from now, will they be able to answer truthfully without guilt, how they voted on my civil rights?
Prop 9 giving more rights to criminals in jail, winning by 53%
...
Californian's voted to invalidate my husbands and my recent marriage, to take away our fundamental rights, while expanding rights for animals and convicts. Glad to see how valued I am as an individual...
Remember, not all gays are white. How much outreach and education was done in minority communities? Or was the white gay community just talking to itself?
Amazing!
Here's my suggestion to gay Californians: Strike! or at least a work slowdown.
There should be some kind of financial repercussion for Prop 8.
BOYCOTT!
LAW SUITS!
MARCHES!
I don't think that a constitutional ammendment that denied spouses of German Americans the right to inherit their husbands estate without taxes, for example, would even be allowed to be considered. How about an ammendment that says Mormons are not allowed to get married?
The religious right would flip.
Then I started thinking, and feeling. And I smartened up, realizing that it did not matter if it affected me - it affected others negatively, which is just plain wrong.
Marriage is a number of things:
- For some it is a religious joining of two souls. As an atheist, I tend to discount the religious nature of marriage, but I do appreciate the symbolism of two people committing their lives (or, in my case, the next 5 years or so) to their love.
- A legal contract granting the partners special rights for each other. There are no other contracts in our society that grant so much power (and responsibility) to another person. Why should same-sex couples be restricted from making that contract? At one time I thought we should have 2 types of joining - Civil Unions and Marriages. But, within our society, what is a marriage but a civil contract? I mean, when a "marriage" of 20+ years where the couple produces multiple children can be annulled in the Catholic Church for whatever rea$$$on, how can any marriage of that sort be more than a simple civil union (from a legal matter)?
So, the the folks of California - shame on you for being so discriminatory. To the Mormon hierarchy, your complicity in forcing your narrow views on innocents will allow you to spend your eternity with Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Jesse Helms, etc. in hell.
i am livid at the way this was handled.
but i'm not too thrilled about the armchair quarterbacking, John. if you really gave a cr*p about No on 8, there were plenty of engagement opportunities besides posting a donate button and thermometer.
i'd like to see two things happen in the short term...
first, i'm trying to find out how to compile a list of the employers of those who contributed to Yes on 8. One of the product managers in the Dell servers group in Texas gave 10,000 - which will impact my decision when it comes to purchasing servers next.
second, i'd love to make sure that some of the churches who got so active here have their expenses audited. that is, it's a long way from the pulpit to the hateful commercials that were running in california.
I take comfort that gay couples still have all the rights of marriage without the silly label. Let the straight people continue to wreak havoc on their "sacred" institution.
So why are the churches quietly funneling tax exempt money and hate across states with no repercussion? Why are they in the business of conjuring hate and fear? Why, it seems, is that their sole purpose is to keep the focus on restricting rights and instill bigotry with nobody standing up to them?
The only institution that has grown in this bad economy are these churches!
I grew up with many Mormon friends, but their social conservative views are as far right as you can get. They have placed discrimination into our constitution with their lie-based campaign, so they need to suffer the consequences.
Also listening to some media types talk about how Clinton made the mistake of trying to integrate the military with gays and lesbians. Well, ITS TWENTY DAMNED YEARS LATER and polls have changed. Its time to allow gays and lesbians to serve in the military as well. Elections do matter!
I vote for civil disobedience for California and other blood red states.
So there's plenty of blame to go around - maybe we should start by throwing our weight around the Democratic party for once, now that we're in power.
Believe me, the Mormon church and Marriott will get NOTHING from me and my friends but I'm not about to reward California with my gay dollars. This was a big enough watershed election that those that ran backwards this election should be punished with civil disobedience.
If you had seen the TV and heard the radio campaigns for and against Prop 8, you'd understand better why so many whites, blacks and latinos fell for this fascist piece of crap. The Yes campaign was able to turn the debate into a protection of children argument and the No side never directly exposed their lies and revealed that the brainwashing threat was one of perpetuating homophobia among schoolchildren.
John is 100% right! "The gay community was entirely tone-deaf to the impact the Yes ads had on many families that are underinformed and overwhelmed with worry for their kids. With violent death stalking many children outside of the door in many California urban neighborhoods, these families feel powerless and these ads made them feel empowered to do something, even if it was utterly symbolic and meaningless to their lives. The Mormons and others Dog Whistled their public and we didn't hear it at all. The gay communitiy's ads were far too abstract and failed to address the smears of the Yes campaign. We had an obligation to educate these voters and failed to do so.
Like John, I am pissed off at the ineptness of our statewide gay leadership. We should be able to have a continuous statewide effort to introduce our communiteis to the whole state and soften hardened opinions about us and our lives and interests. We should follow the Indians, like the Pachenga and San Manuel bands and be able to run TV ads that essentially "sell" gays and lesbians to the rest of California. Like our community, the Indian tribes curry favor among politicians and give generously to friends, but unlike us, they take it upon themselves to directly communicate to the larger population and to take it in their own hands to shape their public image. We have utterly failed to do that and now, we have reaped the fruits of our neglect.
Leadership is difficult when people don't know how to follow or have little interest in the cause---as you know.
I don't think this battle is over, far from it, It sounds like the proposition can have parts of it stricken, especially anything that is ex post facto... besides any sort of joint property as a married couple, etc. That cannot be eradicated or removed, if it was done when it was legal.
I think the campaign had serious problems, but they will not be solved by shoot from the hip rhetoric. It is my understanding that the alliance of organizations opposing Prop 8 gave the PR and advertising tasks to a major firm.
Discussion, as you say, is good.
Boycotts, for the most part, are ineffective, so we fight this through the courts (which obviously is being discussed at this very moment) or we start to gather signatures for a constitutional amendment that opposing citizens will not much appreciate. I am up for either, but I truly believe that we are in a better spot to win this in the next couple of years with Obama rather than McCain (i.e. policy, Supreme Court appointments).
I probably should have clarified my part of the post that mentioned gathering signatures for another ballot initiative - I meant a new one not related to gay marriage. However, I do think the focus has to be on the courts here for the short term.
Yes, also re current focus on the courts.
I'm in Arlington, VA, and while I am thrilled about Obama winning, I shed tears over the losses our community experienced in AR, AZ, FL, and especially CA.
But I am not going to give the black church a full pass on this issue. No more than I would give the latino churches a pass or the LDS. The AIDS community has continuously targeted a disproportionate number of largely or entirely black and latino churches as major culprits in perpetuating homophobic and sex-related misinformation that puts congregants and community members at a very high risk of becoming infected with HIV. This was true in the 1980s, 1990s and still remains true. Didn't we recently learn that infection rates were horribly underreported during the Bush years? And that people of color still are being infected at epidemic-like rates. Anti-gay bigotry preached from the pulpit kills bodies and souls as well as encoruages discrimination. Instead of blaming the flock, let's target the shepherds who lead them over the cliff.
The facts:
Most of the people gathering signatures for the anti-gay marriage proposition were not volunteers, but being paid per signature.
These people could care less about any of the propositions. They are doing it for the money. That is their motivation -- money.
The signature forms can not be photocopied per state law -- they have to be professionally printed.
What I proposed was this:
Encourage every person by email and meetings to use cash buy the signatures and blank forms from the signature gatherers. Ask them how much they are being paid per signature. Pull out your wallet and tell them you'll buy the signatures with cash at the same rate they are getting paid. Then offer like $5 for each blank petition they have. I tried this out, and it totally worked.
No forms equals no signatures. A very active effort to do this would have killed this proposition before it got to the voters.
I haven't seen many people commenting on the hypocrisy and irony of african-american turnout for a vote against discrimination - leading to constitutional discrimination. Blogged above (from a science perspective).
If they don't want us to get married, fine. We just need to start the process to eliminate the 1700 special rights and privileges that they get for a Religous Ceremony.
"They already have too many rights."
I thought creating a law that placed anyone into a 2nd class status was against all we believe in?